Entering the World of Older Spouse Carers

In addition to the important impact of demographic trends and contextual factors such as socio-economic status on the incidence of care between older spouses, developments in policy and practice have also had a significant impact on this incidence. These developments and their implications for older spouse carers and unpaid carers more generally will be explored in the first part of this chapter. The second part will give details of the author’s own research into older spouse carers, the findings of which will be drawn upon in subsequent chapters.